The dramatic surge of violent Cash-In-Transit robberies in South Africa has the cash services industry fighting back.
If you’re moving money, it could all end in tears, gunfire and a sickening explosion. This is the misery of the road in the Cash-In-Transit (CIT) business in South Africa.
With over 180 heists in the first seven months of this year alone, injuring at least 62 guards and killing seven, private business is trying to find ways to make money out of thwarting these thieves.
“The challenge is that this is such a sophisticated level of crime that everyone in our industry is really looking at it and saying this is really difficult to combat. This is quite tough,” says Roy Alves, the Sales Director of Axis Communications.
The Swedish company has been manufacturing security cameras in South Africa for the last two decades. It’s been approached to assist with its technology in combating CITs.
“What we’re seeing is that this is an organized crime. This is not a random hit on a vehicle carrying cash. This is syndicated crime that has intelligence. They’re either listening on radio frequencies, or listening on telephone conversations, or having information on the roots of these vehicles,” says Alves.
The leading providers of security equipment to the CIT and banking industry, AllCash Technologies, hosted a high-level panel discussion recently in Midrand, Johannesburg, which looked at ways to impede these heists.
Interpol’s #TurnBackCrime campaign Ambassador, Andy Mashaile, was one of the panelists.
“In 2017, 136 billion rands went through the veins of the financial system, and out of 10 heists, 465 million [rands] was stolen. Only 33 million [rands] of that was recovered,” said Mashaile.
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The other two panelists were Guateng province’s MEC of Community Safety, Sizakele Malobane, and retired police crime statistics expert and independent analyst, Dr Chris de Kock.
Malobane pulled no punches in giving the perpetrators of CIT heists a stern warning.
“We want to send a message to criminals that we are aware of your arrogance and we’ll deal with your arrogance decisively.There are many ways to deal with it. We can actually respond either by protecting the money… also, we can return fire with fire,” said Malobane.
The use of high-caliber firearms in CIT heists has raised many eyebrows. 
De Kock came armed with statistics that posed crucial questions to the panel. He said 11% of these robberies involve high-caliber firearms.
“These firearms should not be in the hands of the public at all. We’re talking of R4’s (rifle), R5’s (rifle), AK’s (AK-47) and whatever,” said De Kock.
In response, Malobane dispelled some of the suspicions around police involvement.
“It’s not only from the police that these arms are coming from. Most of them, honestly speaking, are actually coming from other countries. These are the kind of weapons that are not used or legal in South Africa, that get used in the process of committing that particular crime,” said Malobane.
Just outside the discussion, AllCash Technologies demonstrated ways to help combat the scourge of CIT heists.
It showed the use of its vehicle vault protection device, called the protection dispensing unit.
The unit is for the protection of assets in the vault area of the vehicle. Once activated, it releases a solid block of polyurethane foam, which envelopes the money, and then hardens into a solid block within two minutes.
In the case of an attempt to blow up the cash van, the explosion hardens the foam, which absorbs the blast.
Also in display here was the Cash Defender MK3, designed to allow the safe movement of bank notes outside of a cash van.
Once activated, it releases smoke and stains the banknotes, rendering them useless. 
Back at the panel discussion, the mining industry, and the use of its explosives in these heists, also came under scrutiny.
“Before we even investigated some of the mining companies, some of them approached us and indicated that ‘we suspect that our explosives are the ones that are being used for CIT’, but not only for CIT, they’re also used for the illegal mining by zama-zamas [hustlers]. So there is an investigation there and I hope that very soon we’ll actually be cracking that particular case,” said Malobane.
For the Interpol ambassador, it was the dark web that was of concern.
Mashaile said 90% of the internet’s usage lies within the dark web, where criminals meet.
“Me and you, and your viewers only use about 10 percent of the internet. The deep web, or dark web, is where a lot of crime is committed. That’s where you can access the hitman industry. That’s where your masterminds in heists meet and communicate freely on that space of the deep web and the dark web,” said Mashaile.
To the crime expert and retired police statistician, the real concern lies within the patterns picked up from his experience.
De Kock says before he left the police in 2013, one of the patterns he noticed was that once one crime is seemingly combatted, criminals move on to the next.
“When we started to manage these figures down from 394 (heists per year) to 182 (heists); 145 (heists) when I left, when it was managed down, it immediately jumped from CITs to ATM bombings. So we must be very careful…the moment you do something, in sociology, we say you have unforeseen consequences,” said De Kock.
Police, government, security companies and the South African community as a whole have had enough of CIT heists. 
For now, the weapons against them are vigilance smoke and foam.

Crime scene blurred law enforcement and forensic background

South Africa Fights Back Against Cash Heists

A plethora of people are gathered inside the Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg, all draped in regalia of the 106-year-old African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s ruling party.
The crowd of more than 5,000 moves like a multi-headed beast, chanting South Africa’s struggle songs. The head of this beast can be found in a song that keeps creeping up in many parts of this crowd.
“Unity maqabane, ixesha lisondele,” goes the song, which loosely translates to “unity comrades, the time has come.”
This is moments before the African National Congress, the oldest liberation movement on the continent, makes one of the biggest decisions in more than a century of struggle and campaigning in Africa. It is about to elect who is going to lead it out of its most difficult time in democratic South Africa.
In a few moments, the ANC will choose who will replace President Jacob Zuma, a man who has ruffled feathers from the boardrooms to the streets.
Even before he took office, Zuma faced 783 counts of corruption. Around $20 million of taxpayers’ money was used to upgrade his private home in Nkandla, even though he is paying back some of it. His relationship with the Gupta family has cast a shadow over his presidency. The economy has undoubtedly taken a huge dip under his leadership, with unemployment rising and investments falling.
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At Nasrec, as the mood of the people swirls in different currents, dark uncertainty is visible on their faces. Factionalism is at its worse within the ANC, with the party split between two candidates.
The first is business-minded ANC Deputy President, Cyril Ramaphosa, who many believe should be next in line, claiming it is party tradition. The unions, however, say he is too capitalist.
The other is Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, a veteran parliamentarian and former chairperson of the African Union Commission. She is the first female ANC member gunning for the party’s top position. Many however say she is too close to President Zuma, her former husband.
Months of campaigning, factionalism, infighting and party slates have all boiled down to this moment. After a period of uncertainty and songs blaring from every corner, EleXions Agency, the facilitators of the voting process, take to the stage to put the masses here out of their misery.
Ramaphosa emerges as the new ANC president by a whisker. A mere 179 votes separates him from Dlamini-Zuma, after almost 5,000 delegates cast their votes.
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The top six positions of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) are also closely contested, with the outcome split between supporters of Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma. Is this the unity outcome that’s often crept up in songs here, or will this cause further division within the self-confessed corruption-riddled party?
“It’s an interesting outcome but it’s an outcome that’s organizational. I think that’s what the ANC needs, where we pull everyone together under one roof and make it a point that people work together as a collective, cohere and move forward,” says recently elected ANC Eastern Cape Chairman, Oscar Mabuyane.
Fikile Mbalula, the newly-elected NEC member, and staunch supporter of Dlamini-Zuma, preaches unity after the battle.
“The conference is over, we have one president and not two. Cyril Ramaphosa is my president and we are going to work nicely together,” says Mbalula, who is also South Africa’s Minister of Police.
Some, however, aren’t taking kindly to the outcome. Bathabile Dlamini, the President of the ANC Women’s League, lambastes the new leadership. The Women’s League had thrown its weight behind Dlamini-Zuma in the hope that she’d become the first woman to lead the ANC in its history.
“This is an attack on women’s struggles. We have been dealt a blow and want to call on all women to stand together,” says Dlamini.
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Jesse Duarte is the only woman in the top six – coincidentally contesting for her position against another woman.
Business tycoon and former Gauteng Premier, Tokyo Sexwale, who is also concerned by the lack of women in the top six, gave words of warning on tackling corruption within the ANC.
“When you become president of the country [one day], make sure you have the long arm of the law reach out to criminals. Start with criminals who are trying to hide under Cyril’s umbrella, because that’s how they corrupt the situation. Before you steal from Eskom, SAA and so on, you’ve got to corrupt the ANC. So deal with them decisively first,” says Sexwale, who was once named alongside Ramaphosa and Mathews Phosa in a plot aimed at toppling then president, Thabo Mbeki, in 2001.
A thorny issue for the new ANC leadership, which includes the 80 NEC members, are the growing calls to recall outgoing ANC president, Zuma, from the presidency of South Africa.
In his closing speech at the conference, Ramaphosa, emphasizes the need for a public office that wouldn’t serve vested interests, but build a truly developmental state.
“Our people will judge this conference not only by what we have done here over these past five days, but perhaps more importantly, they will judge it by what we do next. The people of South Africa want action.”
Will Ramaphosa be able to deliver this action? Time will tell.

‘The People Want Action’

It’s only a few weeks to the much anticipated African National Congress (ANC) leadership race. The number of people who want to be president has grown &#8211; unheard of in the 105-year history of the embattled ANC, the oldest party on the continent. President Jacob Zuma, who anointed his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, expressed dismay at the number of candidates who want to replace him. But the party veteran and former acting president, Kgalema Motlanthe, thinks there’s nothing wrong.
“It’s actually an anomaly and I suppose it is also a sign of state of health of the ANC because these contenders are members of the National Executive Committee (NEC0, which issued a directive at the beginning of the year that nobody should mention any names,” says Motlanthe.
Dlamini-Zuma, the former Africa Union chairperson and the country’s former foreign affairs, health and home affairs minister, and Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President of South Africa, are the hot contenders. Ahead of the elective conference, starting on December 16 in Johannesburg, ANC members are at loggerheads. Motlanthe decried the premature announcement of contenders and says it goes against party tradition.
Zweli Mkhize, the Treasurer-General of the party, is favored as a second choice by supporters of Dlamini-Zuma.
“We leave everything to the branches to select their leadership and we make ourselves available. I still intend to be part of that leadership, and therefore we believe that as that collective that will emerge, we will be able to work together to focus on issues that will help to build the economy and ensure good governance,” Mkhize told FORBES AFRICA.
Gwede Mantashe, the party’s Secretary General and one of the most powerful members of the NEC, said the number of contenders was ridiculous, during his address of OR Tambo memorial lecture in September.
“It’s ridiculous because we are an organization, we know one another and we know our capabilities. It’s not just a question of coin tossing,” says Mantashe.
<div id="attachment_34368" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34368" class=" wp-image-34368" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Kgalema-Motlanthe-e1510557506890-300x224.jpg" alt="Kgalema Motlanthe" width="500" height="373" />Kgalema Motlanthe (Photo by Getty Images)</div>
The ANC has been divided since the 2007 elective conference in Polokwane, in the Limpopo province, where former President Thabo Mbeki, who had hinted at a third term, lost to Zuma, the man he fired as Deputy President in 2005. Since then, competing factions sought control of the party. It continued at the elective conference in 2012, in Mangaung, in the Free State, where Zuma easily defeated Motlanthe’s faction.
“The eradication of factionalism is going to be a long process because it is not just a once-off process; it is going to be something that is going to be linked into rebuilding the values, political education and bringing back party education. There’s also action to those who are involved in corruption, those who are arrogant and those who are not serving the community. All those need to be acted upon so that people can be convinced the ANC is working on some of the things it objected to,” says Mkhize.
ANC is riven by all kinds of scandal; from thousands of illegal members in KwaZulu-Natal, the political murders of whistle-blowers and the leaked Gupta family emails implicating ministers in so-called state capture – that is the takeover of government by private business.
“The ANC has been in power for 23 years and what has happened; corruption is very rife, the generosity and selflessness of former freedom fighters has been turned into greed and desire for the acquisition of material benefits which of course creates a sense of grievance in a majority of people who felt left out. Many of our people are not asking for pity, they are asking for opportunities so they can do for themselves what others are doing for themselves. The number of people without jobs has increased,” says Motlanthe.
“When the Constitution was crafted we hoped we would always have people of Mandela’s strong character in office. Now we know better.”
Whoever emerges victorious in December will be put forward as the ANC candidate for the general election in 2019. The party needs a good one if it is to cling to power against the growing opposition.
“It’s a moot question whether the ANC will retain power beyond the December conference. I don’t know if the new leadership of the ANC that will be elected will understand that or whether they will think by using more slogans you can win people, or a well-couched policy position, will crack it. People go by their lived experience. It will take some doing,” says Motlanthe.
<h2>The pros and cons of the main candidates:</h2>
Cyril Ramaphosa – As the Deputy President of the country and the ANC, it is expected he should be the next man in line. The killings of 34 miners in Marikana in 2012 affected Ramaphosa’s popularity in South Africa. He was a shareholder in Lonmin, the mining company that operated Marikana. But he’s seen as a business-minded candidate and maybe a little too close to the boardroom for the unions.
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma – She is one of the longest serving parliamentarians, appointed in 1994 by President Nelson Mandela, she held a string of ministerial posts. Soon after serving as the chairperson of the African Union, Dlamini-Zuma was again sworn in as the Member of Parliament. The fact that she’s the ex-wife of President Zuma, she’s viewed as a proxy of her former husband who could yet face 783 criminal charges.  Dlamini-Zuma could be South Africa’s first female president.
Zweli Mkhize – He is the Treasurer-General of the ANC NEC and for a long time was an ally of President Zuma until he announced his interest to contest for his position. He is one of the favorites of the biggest ANC constituency of KwaZulu-Natal. The fact that he’s vying for the same support base as Dlamini-Zuma will make it tough.
Baleka Mbete – She is the Chairwoman of the NEC and was appointed Speaker of the National Assembly in 2014. Mbete was previously endorsed by ANC Women’s League, but she’s no longer their candidate since Dlamini-Zuma was endorsed early this year.
Lindiwe Sisulu – She’s one of surprise packages. The minister of housing is the daughter of the late Walter and Albertina Sisulu, both ANC stalwarts. ANC Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu and opposition leader Julius Malema called her “politically immature” but she has solid cabinet experience and a famous name.
Jeff Radebe – He is seen as an outsider to lead the ANC. Since 2014, he has served as the Minister in the Presidency. As a cabinet minister, he has served in different portfolios since President Mandela in 1994. In late June, Radebe accepted a nomination from ANC Midvaal, in Gauteng, but ever since then is the quiet candidate whom many are not giving a chance.
&#8211; Additional reporting by Thobile Hans

The Southern Slug Fest

It’s a business that has seen blood and conflict. It’s an industry that’s blocked the streets in anger. Yet, with more than 15 million customers a day, it can make you a fortune. That’s why people in South Africa are fighting over the taxi industry.
In Johannesburg, known as the City of Gold, the taxi business can mean gold for the grandchildren… or can it? As South Africa goes through tough economic times, the owners of this industry are also feeling the pinch. Conflict is brewing. Most drivers are angry with the threat of a strike looming nearer each day.
The customers aren’t happy either. Every day, millions of South Africans move through the thousands of taxi ranks around the country. They may struggle to do so in future. Many are struggling as the cost of using taxis keeps increasing.
“If you’re looking from one where I’m from, it’s already R18 ($1.35), so that makes it R36 ($2.70) a day just to get to Johannesburg. Sometimes I catch two taxis, so we’re talking plus minus R60 ($4.50), R70 ($5.30) a day,” says a commuter at the Noord Taxi Rank, one of South Africa’s busiest.
“If the taxi fare were to go up I would cry because that means everything will go up as well,” says another.
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The numbers tell the story: 40% of 56 million South Africans use public transport.
Nine million people take buses, two million use trains, and the taxis get the lion’s share, with over 15 million customers a day. Sixty nine percent of all homes use minibus taxis. That’s almost a staggering 5.5 billion taxi trips every year.
In an office far from the honking horns of the streets, Sihle Mkhize is fighting for his fellow taxi drivers. Mkhize owns six taxis and is the face of the biggest taxi association in the country, Faraday Taxi Association.
“I can’t give you the exact number but we have over 3,000 taxis, because we have 114 taxi ranks and routes. Because of the capacity of the routes we have, we are the biggest association in South Africa,” says Mkhize.
<div id="attachment_33907" style="width: 511px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33907" class=" wp-image-33907" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Taxi-594-e1508395960509-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="501" height="332" />Toyota Quantum taxis drive through Johannesburg. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
The Toyota Quantum is a four-wheeled fly in the ointment. It came to South Africa from Japan in 2006 with its price tag around R220,000 ($16,700). The government encouraged everyone to buy them to modernize the industry. By 2008, it escalated to R300,000 ($22,800), which was a worry for drivers.
“There was a complaint that because the Quantum is too expensive at R300,000, Toyota should rather build them from scratch here in South Africa. They agreed and there was a six-month period where the Quantums were out of the market. They then came back in November 2015 at a heftier price tag of R360,000 ($27,400). At the beginning of this year, in January, it was R400,000 ($30,400),” says Mkhize.
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It’s even worse now. The Toyota Quantum is now manufactured in Durban, with its price around R500,000 ($38,000). Not too far shy of the price of a house.
“There’s no difference now, whether they assemble it here or not. We wanted Toyota to build it here so it can be cheaper; instead it’s more expensive now. It’s a burden because it now wants a R15,000 ($1,150) instalment. In our line of work, it’s difficult to increase taxi fare because we understand that the commuters using our taxis get paid next to nothing where they work,” says Mkhize.
The organization that fields these complaints in the taxi industry is the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO). It represents more than 100 taxi associations in the Gauteng region alone, and is the biggest taxi union in the country. Ralph Jones, its Chairman in Johannesburg, is threatening to strike.
“Let us have a strike which will target SA Taxi Finance, where they were charging a lot of interest rates at 28%. Their repayments were over six years, at R15,000 ($1,150), so when you calculate that it’s an amount over R1 million ($76,000). How can you buy an asset that costs around R500,000 for over R1 million?” says Jones.
The man whose job it is to try to help people afford these taxis is David Hurwitz, the CEO of Transaction Capital, which provides financing for the taxi industry.
“Our cost of funding to our clients is higher, our offering is higher than a bank&#8217;s. Our finance would be at about 24.9%, that would be the interest rate. We are about 6% higher than a bank,” says Hurwitz.
<div id="attachment_33908" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33908" class=" wp-image-33908" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Taxi-575-e1508396103497-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Taxis in Johannesburg. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Hurwitz says this is due to financing people who banks wouldn’t fund, which makes the risk higher. In negotiations, lower rates will come at a cost.
“What we’ve said to the taxi industry is that we will drop our rates slightly. Unfortunately what that means is that a certain segment of our customer base that typically would be able to qualify for funding, now won’t,” says Hurwitz.
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Then there’s government. Many claim that all of this is merely government trying to phase out taxis by the backdoor.
“At the forefront of all of these issues, we are certain that this is another way that government is trying to phase out taxis. They want us to struggle paying for these cars so they can be repossessed. In order for us to be able to afford them, we have to increase prices for our passengers, who will then run away from us and go on buses, the very buses government is introducing,” says Mkhize.
“We carry the same passengers, same as buses. But because government wants to see us defeated, it puts us together with private cars on the roads and we face heavy traffic, while buses have designated lanes. All this to take away passengers from us and send them to buses, another way of phasing us out because no passenger wants to be late to work,” says Mkhize.
FORBES AFRICA made repeated attempts to get the government’s side of the story, but unfortunately these attempts proved fruitless.
It’s the biggest mover of people in South Africa, and across the continent. Millions depend on it for transport to and from work. It could be heading for chaos and conflict. A taxi strike could halt business in South Africa, losing the country billions. If not faced head-on, the industry that moves most African people could be remembered as the industry that caused all the trouble.

Aviwe Mtila

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

South Africa Fights Back Against Cash Heists

‘The People Want Action’

The Southern Slug Fest

The Taxi Tumult